SUMMER SKY— One evening at the end of July when Lab News photographer Randy Montoya saw the just in front of the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. Waiting for his moment, Randy dark clouds gathering with unusual intensity, he saw the potential for a uniquely dramatic photograph. captured this unforgettable image of the museum’s iconic Redstone rocket standing boldly in the face As darkness descended and the brewing storm came alive in light and sound, Randy was there, set up of some of the planet’s most awesome forces. (Photo by Randy Montoya) Meet Sandia’s new Truman Fellows Researchers Grey Ballard and John Gamble have been selected as Sandia’s 2014 Truman Fellows. They join the ranks of 19 other Fellows who have been appointed since the President Harry S. Tru- man Fellowship in National Security Science and Vol. 65, No. 14 August 9, 2013 Engineering was established in 2004. See page 12. Managed by Sandia Corporation for the National Nuclear Security Administration Tonopah Test Range Providing indispensable support of the nation’s nuclear deterrent . page 5 ‘We’re here to protect, enable, ‘If Sandia fails, the deterrent fails’ and challenge you’ NNSA DP chief Don Cook on Sandia’s role NNSA Acting Administrator Bruce Held visits Sandia in weapon modernization efforts By Nancy Salem By Neal Singer cting NNSA Administrator Bruce Held said the unique and distinguishing ounding occasionally like a proselytizer at an unusual revival meeting, NNSA Astrength of DOE is its scientific brain trust, particularly at the national laborato- Deputy Administrator of Defense Programs Don Cook returned to Sandia to ries. “The brain trust is the core asset of S raise awareness and enthusiasm our enterprise and one of the great cre- for NNSA’s effort to modernize and ations in the history of mankind,” he simplify the US nuclear weapons told Sandians on Monday. “We’re not stockpile. here to micromanage. We need to make The warmly greeted Cook, who as you reach and stretch, and take chances.” a Sandian once led major programs Held said scientists should not be crit- at Z and MESA, reassured a packed icized when a project isn’t successful. house on July 24 at the Steve Schiff “We want you to push the envelope, Auditorium of the importance of and in doing so there will be some fail- Sandia to NNSA’s sustainment and ures,” he said. What should be empha- modernization plans. These include sized, he explained, is the impact of designing interoperable and adapt- returns on technical investments and of able warhead components to reduce lessons learned from working on big the number of weapons needed for challenges. deterrence. Held said an emphasis on maximiz- “In aggregate, these technical NNSA ACTING ADMINISTRATOR Bruce Held at Sandia ing the percent ratio for success can challenges exceed anything the Labs NNSA DEFENSE PROGRAMS chief Don Cook at on August 5. (Photo by Randy Montoya) force scientists to take on smaller chal- has been called upon to do in the Sandia. (Photo by Randy Montoya) lenges. He said that’s not the best past 20 years,” Cook said. approach. “What the nation really needs you to do is take on massive, big projects, He added that while Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories (Continued on page 4) (Continued on page 4) Hydrogen ignition Tech Showcase Chem/bio detectors Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles Sandia will again take its cutting-edge Sandia scientists are thinking small, could be coming to a showroom near research and technology to the com- building on decades of sensor work to you in just a few years. Many automo- munity at a daylong event on Sept. 10 invent a new generation of tiny detec- tive manufacturers are turning to at the Embassy Suites in Albuquerque. tors with a wide range of applications hydrogen as an alternate transporta- The Sandia Research & Technology that can sniff out everything from tion fuel, with initial commercializa- Showcase is free and open to the explosives and biotoxins to smuggled tion expected soon. Story on page 3. public. Story on page 9. humans. See the story on page 11. That’s that My mother, whose home is in the Washington, D.C., area, has been visiting us for the summer and she’s gotten right into the swing of things. When she arrived, all we could talk about was the drought. Coming from a part of the country where that’s usually not an issue, her first impression was probably that we were maybe a bit OCD-ish on the subject. It wasn’t long, though, before she was scanning the horizon right along with us, squinting, reading the clouds like tea 50 years ago . leaves, muttering, “Looks like it could rain.” And finally, it did. And did. And Work on the new did. And instead of talking about the drought, we talked about flash floods and addition to Bldg. power outages and that dreaded “H” word: humidity. 912 at Livermore I knew my mom had really arrived as a New Mexican when I overheard her side Laboratory is sched- of a telephone conversation with my sister. It went something like this: “Mostly uled to be completed sitting out on the front porch watching it rain.” And: “We drove over to the next May. When arroyo to see how much water was in it.” And: “The mountain really looks socked completed, the two- in; we may drive up into the clouds.” I can just hear my sister on the other end story, 23,600 sq. ft. of the line: “Okaaayyyy.” wing will principally A pretty exciting place, New Mexico. provide additional VANTAGE POINT — on the roof of * * * engineering office Bldg. 912 at Livermore Laboratory As long as I’m talking about family, let me tell you about my son’s latest and laboratory provides J. G. Harter (8221) with a adventures in New Zealand, where’s he’s a grad student in Wellington. space. It will be built view of the excavation for the new Jim and a friend had a house on a bluff on the edge of town, nothing fancy of reinforced con- wing of the building. When com- but the terrific views were included in the price. Well, it so happens that on one crete frame construc- pleted the addition will connect the tion with masonry present wings of the building, form- particular evening Jim was en route back to Welly after doing a presentation at a ing a quadrangle. conference in Seoul. His friend Bridget was home alone. Along about 3:30 in the curtain walls. morning, a neighbor started pounding frantically on the door: “You have to get 40 years ago . Two patents for Sandia inventions out! Get out now! The cliff is collapsing.” Alarmed and understandably confused were granted to the AEC that cover methods of and disoriented — she had been in a deep sleep at this point — Bridget didn’t even strain biasing a ferroelectric electrooptic ceramic have time to grab her shoes. But she escaped in one piece and got to a shelter plate. The strain bias produces birefringence with rela- while emergency responders kept people out of the area. Bridget was able to reach tively low voltages applied across the plate thickness. Jim while he was at a layover in Singapore, told him what was going on and not to Cecil Land and Willis Smith (both 5113) have produced worry in case he heard anything in the media. (He would likely be checking the strain bias by purely electrical means under one of the Wellington newspaper on his iPad during his layover, after all.) patents. Poling and switching produces strains in the Daylight revealed that two neighboring houses were literally perched over ceramic plate which, in turn, produces birefringence — the edge of the cliff; a mudslide had washed away half their foundations. Jim and hence the term self-strain bias. A further modification Bridget’s house was right at the edge but still intact. Given the precarious of the method to induce strain bias in the ceramic was nature of the situation, safety officials wouldn’t let them back in to get their the basis for the second patent. Birefringence in the stuff. In the meantime, the house had settled and split right down the middle, ceramic can be achieved easily with both of the new leaving a gap in the roof that allowed New Zealand’s ample winter rainfall to get methods with controllable and repeatable results. in, ruining most of the furniture. 30 years ago . Well, after a couple of weeks in a shelter, they found a new house, a neat Someday this giant little place right on the waterfront on the outskirts of town down near Cook tri-level space in Strait, which separates the North Island and South Island. They were pretty Bldg. 983 will excited and began to think that maybe everything had worked out for the best after house a world- all. They were all set to move in when a huge freak hurricane-sized storm blew in class accelerator, from a direction that storms never come from. It washed out the road in front of the largest of its their house, first time that had happened in living memory. Finally, the winds type in the world. subsided, the waters retreated, and the road got patched up and made passable Called PBFA-II (for again. They moved in and just loved the place. Particle Beam And everything was fine . until the earthquakes struck, the biggest Fusion Accelerator, one measuring 6.5 magnitude, with a focal point in — yes — Cook Strait.